Daily News from New York, New York • 6

r3 p7 rr roYVTrc? nn 5 yi' "vvw "mm hvm. By PON SINGLETON Daily News Staff Wnter lEVENTY-FIVE YEARS! Today is the 75th birthday of the Daily 'News, the paper whose in-your-face head- lines, prize-winning photos and brash, streetwise writing style have defined the American tabloid for generations of journalists and delighted generations of readers. It has been a helluva run, too. l-Jf Since the flimsy first issue thumped off the presses June 26, 1919, The News has chronicled the most exciting three-quarters of a century in the history of mankind, years that saw wars and moon-walks, pennant races and race riots, epidemics and miracle cures well, everything. In the process The News grew from a pipsqueak upstart, the smallest kid on the block, into the largest circulation daily newspaper in the nation, with a voice that sent quakes through City Hall and reverberated in Albany and Washington.

According to legend, the idea for the paper was hatched in France at the end of World War in the summer of 1918, in a conversation between Capt Joseph Medill Patterson and his cousin Col. Total number of issues: 27,395, less editions missed during strikes. Total weight of newsprint used: 10.2 million metric tons. El Total length of newsprint used, based on standard 45-inch-wide rolls: 110 million miles. Total area of newsprint used: 70,000 square miles.

Total volume of ink used: 31 million gallons. Construction of The News Buildingat220E.42dSt. began Dec. 29, 1928, and was completed June 25, 1930, from plans drawn by architects John M. Howells, Raymond M.

Hood and J. Andre Fouilhoux. The building contains 718,006 square feet. The famous News Building lobby, with its 17-foot globe, was based on ideas of Joseph M. Patterson.

Laid into the terrazzo floor in brass are the compass points and the names of the world's principal cities with their distances from New York. The News Building Annex, extending to Second was designed by the architectural firm of Harrison and Abramovitz. It was begun May 23, 1957, and completed June 25, 1960. It contains 378,366 square feet. Robert R.

McCormick. From idea to reality took less than a year on June 26, 1919, the first edition hit the streets from The News' first headquarters near City Hall: "GERMANS BLOCK SIGNING OF TREATY," the page 1 headline said, and there was a full-page photo of the Prince of Wales, who was due to visit America. Many predicted the paper would have a short future even though newspapers comprised the only news game in town, there were 13 dailies on city newsstands. But somehow, right from the beginning, The News struck a chord with New York City's real people, the middle-class working men and women who rode the subway and had an appetite for what the paper was selling. That something was and still is the truth told in plain words, great sports and feature coverage, the best photos, plenty of comics, advertisements and all sorts of information to make life in the big city easier to understand and more fun.

As News Chairman and Co-Publisher Mortimer B. Zuck-erman put it: "For 75 years the Daily News has been the voice of New York City. We consider it a great privilege to be part of carrying on that tradition and pledge ourselves to continue to speak out on behalf of New York." To look back at the history of The News is to look across an amazing sweep of history the world has changed to an almost unbelievable degree since that day in 1919. Back when the paper was founded, the fastest way to get from New York to Chicago was by train. The streets were still full of horse-drawn delivery wagons.

There was no radio news as we know it, no movies with color or sound, no air conditioning. The News was a different place too. In the beginning first on City Hall Place, then on Park Row and finally, in 1930, in The News Building on E. 42d St there were clattering typewriters and jangling telephones, writers hollering "Copy!" The sixth floor of The News Building was a place of clanking Linotype machines and tons of hot metal type; downstairs were OLD n.Y,ST commuters read all about it (above). Workers have world at their feet as they build globe in News Building lobby (nght).

Opposite, cop doesn't pussyfoot around as he halts cars for mom cat kitten in 1925. the -rolls of paper and the thundering presses that made the building vibrate. Things are different today. Typewriters have been replaced by video terminals. Instead of ringing, telephones chortle electronically.

There are voice mail and E-mail and fax machines, telephones you can carry in your breast pocket. The paper is now printed in Brooklyn, though new color printing presses have been purchased and groundbreaking for a new plant in New Jersey is expected soon. The new plant will bring The News up to speed with revolutionary changes in the newspaper business, changes that have brought the paper to death's door more than once. There were economic problems, strikes, blackouts. going to keep it on top," Drasner said.

"The Daily News will enter the 21st century as a state-of-the-art newspaper, poised to take advantage of all that's coming down the interactive highway." But while so much has changed and will change, some things remain the same. The News' mandate is the-same today as it was 75 years ago. There's a lot going on in today's world, and the paper's mission continues to be telling you all about it. In this decade, Chicago's Tribune Company and the paper unions locked themselves in a death struggle, a bizarre Englishman named Robert Maxwell pulled the fat from the fire and, when Maxwell died at sea amid the collapse of his financial empire, Zuckerman and Co-Publisher Fred Drasner not only saved the day, but strengthened the paper's position as the No. 1 tabloid.

"The News has been the dominant New York City tabloid for 75 years, and we're.